The Italian naval vessel ITS Giuseppe Garibaldi arrived at the Port of Colombo on Wednesday, 9 September for a replenishment visit, the Daily Mirror and Hiru News reported.
The ship was welcomed by the Sri Lanka Navy in keeping with naval traditions on arrival at the port.
The Daily Mirror describes the vessel as a 180-metre-long Landing Helicopter Aircraft Vessel, commanded by Captain Marco Guerriero. During its stay, the commanding officer is scheduled to pay a courtesy call on the Commander of the Western Naval Area.
The second foreign warship in Colombo this week
The call follows the arrival of the Indian Navy frigate INS Udaygiri at Colombo on 8 September, which coincided with the visit of India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
Replenishment calls of this kind are routine. Colombo’s position on the Indian Ocean shipping lanes makes it a standard resupply stop for navies operating between the Mediterranean, the Gulf and the Indo-Pacific, and such visits typically involve refuelling, provisioning, crew rest and a round of courtesy calls rather than any operational or diplomatic agreement.
Not reported
Neither report says how long the vessel will stay or where it is deployed from. Neither gives the size of the crew, names the Commander of the Western Naval Area, or says whether any exercise, training exchange or joint activity with the Sri Lanka Navy is planned.
Neither says whether the visit is connected to any wider Italian deployment in the region.
Sourcing note
Updated 11 September: Hiru News has since filed its own report on the call, which supplies the arrival date this article originally recorded as missing — the vessel berthed on 9 September, the day before either outlet reported it. The two accounts agree on every other particular: the 180-metre Landing Helicopter Aircraft classification, Captain Marco Guerriero in command, and the scheduled courtesy call on the Commander of the Western Naval Area.
Ada Derana returned a CloudFront 403 across the whole domain throughout the original cycle. The Sri Lanka Navy’s own news site — which has published notices of comparable Italian port calls in the past, and which typically also files a departure notice — had nothing indexed for this vessel at the time of writing.
On past form, a departure statement is likely within a few days and would carry the visit’s duration.
